Hidden Flames
by xpressions
Summary: She had power within herself, power she'd never dreamed of ever having, but it felt like it really and truly belonged to her. Sakura centric. Romance later on.
1. Discovered

Hidden Flames

_-xpressions_

Sakura heaved in a deep and long breath as Kin gripped her tightly by her pink-colored locks, holding back her hair. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and bit her bottom lip down hard. The sound nin shook her head about roughly, tugging on Sakura's silky pink hair.

The jade green-eyed koinochi fought back the tears of fear, frustration and anger that were threatening to fall from her tensed eyelids. She was the only one left, and she would have to deal with that. Naruto and Sasuke were at rest in a unconscious state (though Sasuke did have some strange chakra emitting from his neck) and were certainly in absolutely no condition to fight. Lee had battled himself to the ground fighting these sound nin. It was only her.

Her green eyes scanned the floor in front of her, trying to distract her own line of vision, struggling to hold back the tears. This, while proving almost impossibly difficult for Sakura to do, was all she could think of to actually, well, _do_.

She was only an average koinochi and she didn't have anything special to her at all. She wasn't the survivor of a clan massacre, she held no demon within her, she wasn't about to inherit a clan, her parents weren't ninja….no, she was about as average as they came. Apart from her unusual hair color of course, and that wasn't exactly the kind of special she wanted. It made her seem _weaker_.

She logically didn't stand a chance against these three sound ninjas, who had beaten Lee (an admirable ninja with much more power than Sakura herself) and were all still standing tall. This is what saddened Sakura to almost a state of extreme self-pity.

She could pretend all she liked, but she wasn't as strong as any of the other genin taking the exam. Not even close. Actually, she figured she was about last place, and without her team she'd be gone, maybe dead, for sure.

She continued to stare at the ground, only catching a few of the venomous words that dripped from the female sound ninja's mouth. _"Weak…you…much time…hair…"_ She didn't need to hear them all to know they were filled with hatred. She looked over to Lee and his eyes were wide in…pity. He pitied her. He didn't think she was strong enough to handle this, and in reality, she wasn't.

This reality hit Sakura like a brick. No one thought she was strong. She fought back a bitter laugh. Not even her. The tears that she had been fighting back started to brim in Sakura's glassy jade eyes. They were correct in that statement.

She _obviously_ couldn't defeat these three ninjas, she couldn't save Sasuke and Naruto…she wasn't strong enough. She never _would be_…

Sakura closed her eyes tight and thought to herself. She didn't want to be the weakest anymore. She wanted to be as strong as everyone else…no, actually, she wanted to be _stronger_ than everyone else. She realized that that feeling…the one she thought was due to Sasuke's rejections and Naruto's annoyances…it wasn't either.

That heart wrenching, deeply irritating feeling deep within herself wasn't because of her male teammates…it was her frustration with herself. She deep down _knew_ she had more power than she thought. _She knew it_. And now, she had to pull it out from herself. And damnitt, she would try to.

She relaxed her tensely closed eyes and looked down deep in herself. Lee had risked his life to save her, and he barely knew her. But she felt she knew him very well now…his heart was powerful…and so was he. She envied him, and that's why, she realized, she thought he was strange. Well, that and the spandex. And she absolutely couldn't, _wouldn't_, let his hard work go to waste. And then Sasuke and Naruto, she knew they lay helpless beside her, and yet ironically _they_ were always protecting _her_…

This was her chance to protect _them_ instead of vice versa.

Because quite frankly, she was sick of being protected, and she was absolutely, to no doubt, tired of being weak. Because she knew she could be strong.

_She knew it_.

Sakura's slightly damp green eyes widened as she felt something. She felt a presence of power, _unimaginable_ chakra bursting from her chest down out through her veins. She felt it glide smoothly through her arms and legs, and all of a sudden, she felt empowered.

It was something she had never hoped or even dreamed would ever happen to her…and yet she felt like it belonged, really and truly _belonged _to her. She felt, like this dormant power had been with her all along…

She wasn't quite sure of her limits now, but for some reason, no longer was she afraid. No longer did she feel weak. Actually, she just about wanted to get up and punch these assholes in the face.

By now her hearing and vision were returning, but she hadn't even realized they had been gone. She let herself come to her senses, and the strange thing was, no longer did she feel the firm grip on her hair…it felt so _free_, and she could feel it cascade down her back.

She looked up and towards Lee again, but he was staring at her, not with pity, but he looked amazed. She wondered, quite frankly why he would look at her that way, but she had bigger problems to deal with.

She spun around to see Kin standing away from her and back next to Zaku. All three of the sound ninja were staring at her, _wide-eyed_. They seemed to be staring in awe…or was that…_horror_? Why would _they_ be afraid of _her_?

She spun around once again to check nothing deadly was standing behind her, and no, it was completely empty. She saw nothing but the trees…wait, _what_? She peered into the trees a way and could see the edge of the forest, zooming in through the trees, as if through a giant lens. Her eyes widened as she pulled back from the sight. What was that?

She spun back to where Dosu, Kin, and Zaku were standing. She had been meaning to attack and kick their asses back to where they came from…but they looked so…well, _helpless_. Which was again, supremely ironic. _They_ were afraid of _her_. The same girl who had been terrified of _them_ only a few minutes ago? She knew what that felt like, and all of a sudden, she couldn't attack them. She wanted to, oh god did she ever, but it didn't seem right at all.

Letting her good judgment take over she ignored them and began to walk over to Lee. She bent down to his level as he gazed into her eyes with wonderment. "Sakura…" He started, his voice filled with nothing but pure amazement. "What happened to-"

Though he was cut off. Sakura heard a high pitch noise, sounding much like metal slicing through air. Her eyes widened as her hand reached up and caught a kunai that had been whizzing towards her head. Lee still looked at her with awe, as she was in wonderment of her herself. She had just heard it, and her reflexes had stopped it. It had happened so fast she had barely registered the kunai. She decided to dismiss this thought though, but just as she did so another kunai came whizzing towards her. She caught it in her other hand and deciding this was the final straw stood up, turning to face the three sound nin.

"Zaku!" Kin hissed to her male teammate in fear and reprimand. He ignored Kin and smirked daringly at Sakura, as if _challenging_ her to attack him. She furrowed her brow in thought and then nodded slowly, quickly sending the two kunais speeding right towards him. His eyes widened slightly as he barely dodged, getting away with a slight scrape to his shoulder.

She had accepted his challenge. _And she would not back down_. Sakura would win this time, she would win it for everyone who had ever shown her what a true ninja is.

She ran towards the young ninja, punching him square in the gut with a chakra-reinforced punch. He flew back and hit the tree behind him, flying through that and into the tree behind that. He appeared to be unconscious. Sakura stared in awe at her own hand, it was ablaze in green chakra. And it had appeared so suddenly.

Sakura finally registered everything. These ninjas were _afraid of her_, and she was just able to gather up a massive amount of chakra to her hand without even thinking about it. She started to feel dizzy with everything that was going on and put a steady hand to her forehead to soothe a throbbing pain beginning to form there.

She turned to Dosu and Kin unsteadily, who of which appeared to be trembling slightly. Dosu walked carefully over to her with slow…steady…steps and placed a heaven scroll down before her, backing away. "You may have our scroll," He said with forced calamity. "Just spare our lives this time." He gave her a fleeting glance while cautiously backing away further.

Sakura continued to grab her head as the world gradually started spinning faster and faster. She watched the sound ninja back away and the last thing she heard was Ino's voice. "Oh my god Shikamaru, _what happened to her_?"

Sakura awoke only to hear the soft murmuring voices of familiar ninja. She felt the soft green grass beneath her and lay there for a while, coming to her senses. What _happened_? Where did she get that power? It felt as if her whole body had been chakra reinforced, her eyes, ears, and as she discovered in battle, her fists. One loud and awfully familiar voice hit her first.

"_What happened to Sakura-Chan?!_ Is she okay?! Tell me what happened _you lazy bum_!" She heard Naruto exclaim with worry and frustration.

"Shut it Naruto, she trying to rest!" She heard Ino snap back to the blonde. At this Sakura slowly opened her eyes, and blinked them twice.

"Oh my god, she's waking up!" She looked up, only to see Ino with tears in her light blue eyes. Sakura blinked again and slowly sat up, all of a sudden feeling the dizziness rush back to her head and flood through her entire body. She grabbed her head in agony and drew in several gasps.

Ino looked at her with intense worry before doing something Sakura would have never expected her to do ever again. She threw her arms around Sakura, enveloping her into a hug. She felt hot tears on her shoulder as Ino began to sob slightly. "Oh my…my god for-forehead girl, I-I thought th-that y-you were _go-gone_."

Sakura's head was still pounding. She felt herself becoming weaker, she felt like she would break down any second.

Everything was becoming more and more blurry, and the dizziness overwhelmed her. She brought the hand back down from her head and to the floor to keep herself from falling back. She didn't know what to say to the weeping girl on her shoulder, so all she mustered out was, "Ino…I'm okay."

And hearing her own voice was a shock. It sounded completely and utterly _weak_. Sakura was disgusted at the idea. She had just proved herself to be anything of the sort; and there was no going back now.

"Ino, I'm fine, I'm here, you can let go now." She stated calmly to Ino, even though she felt nothing of the sort. Ino drew away from her and rubbed the remainder of tears from her eyes, while Sakura slowly started to stand up. She felt herself becoming dizzier as she ascended, but that only reminded her of how very weak she had felt.

She sucked in a breath and stood up slowly, he legs threatening to crash down below her at any second. She pushed away all of the help offered to her, and she could feel all eyes on her as she stood, knees shaking. As she ascended slowly she felt her legs buckle below her and almost fell down, but brought a hand to the floor to steady herself.

She could hear Ino complaining. "Damnitt Sakura, just let me help you."

Sakura shook her head. "No Ino, _I have to do this_."

She could hear Ino huff and then mutter something about always having to do it her own way and then she heard Shikamaru's voice come into question. "Let her do this Ino." He said firmly but kindly, and Sakura mentally thanked him.

She had all this power, now she was just going to have to deal with it. Well if she was so _powerful_ why was it taking her so damn long to get of the floor?! Sakura frowned to herself and felt the determination in her body cover all of the dizziness. She shot up with determination and then slowly steadied herself, looking around.

She saw five pairs of eyes rested upon her. One pair of which belonged to Naruto, who was watching her intently, and had stayed pretty much silent this whole time. He looked so worried, she just wanted to prove to him she was fine. She would have to do that when she felt of the sort.

Then there was Sasuke who was watching her with his usual stoic expression although his moth was turned into a slight frown, as if he were trying to calculate something. The mark on his neck was glowing slightly and he would occasionally bring a hand up to it.

Then there was a girl with brown hair tied up into two neat buns who was holding Lee, who were also both studying Sakura carefully. Then a strange pair of chakra pumped white eyes was watching her, trying to what looked like 'evaluate' her. Shikamaru and Chouji were trying to comfort Ino, who was on the verge of breaking into tears again.

Sakura looked at all of them and gazed glassily back, almost as confused as they were, if not _more_. She slowly slipped her hand from her head and took a few deep breaths, trying to breathe away the spinning sensation she felt everywhere in her body.

_Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out._

She heaved out her last breath and forced out all the rest of the spinning sensation she felt. She stood up as straight as she could and studied the area, still feeling most of the eyes on her form. She frowned slightly, eyeing the area. And then, she saw it.

There were burn marks, they were almost everywhere.

Everywhere she had stepped anyways.

_Yea, so this is my fist ever fic on fanfiction. I hope you guys liked it and whatnot, so please review!_


	2. Emotions

Hidden Flames

_-xpressions_

_She heaved out her last breath and forced out all the rest of the spinning sensation she felt. She stood up as straight as she could and studied the area, still feeling most of the eyes on her form. She frowned slightly, eyeing the area. And then, she saw it. _

_There were burn marks, they were almost everywhere. _

_Everywhere she had stepped anyways. _

Her eyes widened as she took a step back, gears clicking together in her mind. She continued to randomly gaze at a large black burn spot on the earth in front of her, leaved charred and dirt upturned. She turned hastily to her blonde haired friend, who was now standing beside her, observing her. Their gazes met, and Ino broke away.

"Ino." Sakura said with forced calamity, her voice threatening to crack with desperation in every word she uttered out. She continued to hold gaze with her blonde friend who was looking away. "Ino, what happened to me?"

Ino closed her eyes and sighed lightly, trying to find words to explain the events. She stood there for a few moments, formulating words in her mind. Pairs of green, blue, and brown eyes were cast in her direction.

"Well you see…" Ino began, trying to follow up with carefully calculated speech. "Those three sound ninjas had just beaten Lee," Lee, who had fixed his gaze on Sakura for the past couple of minutes looked away in shame and closed his eyes, quietly listening.

"And the black haired girl was tugging on Sakura's hair." She continued narrating to the small group. "She was spewing out some nasty insults to you forehead girl, but you didn't seem to be listening." She threw a weak smile over to Sakura before continuing.

"Then, all of a sudden your body was glowing with bright green chakra. It was amazing. The glow started out small, but after a few seconds it started to expand. It was almost as if it were alive. It grew and grew, you had a massive energy force surrounding you-"

"It looked as if you were on fire." Chouji all of a sudden broke in to add, nodding. Shikamaru followed suit and said, "Not to mention your chakra levels were extremely high Sakura. It was terrifying." He added matter-of-factly.

Ino cleared her throat and attention was diverted back to her, so she continued. "Anyway, that sound bitch got scared and ran back to her little team." Ino said, smirking. "And then you got up. You looked like you were going to destroy them. It even scared _me_ forehead girl."

Shikamaru made a clicking sound of disbelief and Ino threw him a glare before continuing. "But you didn't, you went over to help Lee. Then one of the sound ninjas threw kunais at you, and you punched him though that tree."

She pointed to an old tree with a huge burned hole in the center of it and everyone followed her finger to the point, and all eyes were locked on that tree. Sakura stared at the tree in disbelief. _She did that_?

As in her, _Sakura_? Sakura looked down at her hands, and they were slightly charred, but strangely they didn't hurt.

Naruto chose this time to stop being quiet. "Nani?! She punched _that hole_ in _that tree_?!" He shouted, pointing at the huge gaping hole in the tree. "_No way_! And what about these freaking burn marks?! Sakura did these too?" He glanced over to Ino who nodded quietly, shocked at his outburst.

He shook his head childishly. "No! Sakura-chan is not a monster! She wouldn't do this!" His voice lowered slightly as he turned to Sakura. "You wouldn't…would you?"

Sakura looked up from her hands, aware of the audience watching the charade Naruto had created and looked at him. "Yes…" She began. "I did this Naruto." She finished with confidence. She was proud. "Down to the last burn hole."

Naruto stared at her incredulously for a moment. Sakura was aware of what she'd said. She turned to everyone else. "I don't know where this chakra came from," She started. "But believe this. I am going to become the most powerful koinochi I can be. I am going to learn how to control it. I am going to make this power my own. Because I am sick of being _weak_." She spat out the last word.

"I am going to be strong." She finished. A vein then appeared on her head as she turned to the white eyed guy beside her, who had been staring at her since she woke up. "And damnitt dude, _stop staring at me_!" She shouted at him.

Neji's eyes widened for a slight second before his mouth turned up into a smirk. No one had ever shouted at him before. And this girl, he just couldn't take his eyes off her. She was so…powerful, and yet so beauti-…no. He is Hyuuga Neji. He did not like this girl. It was not his destiny to fall in love with her, it would interfere with his path as a ninja.

Sakura was annoyed as hell. "Damnitt, I said, STOP STARING AT ME!" She shouted again and started to throw a quick punch at him, reinforced with chakra once again, when she stopped. Neji snapped out of his trance as Tenten ran over, claiming he had almost been killed. His eyes shifted once again to the pretty…uh…_strong_ pink-haired girl who was studying her hand in amazement. Neji wanted to battle her. He just had to fight her.

Sakura's hand was on fire. She would have usually started screaming, or put it out, but it wasn't exactly on fire, it was just emitting large waves of violent green chakra. The waves of chakra however were starting to fade slowly. Sakura studied it as the chakra slowly started to recede. So this chakra was fueled by her emotions…

Naruto ran over to stare at her hand, as did Ino. While both blondes were fussing over her hand and bombarding her with questions, Sasuke sat in the background, clutching his neck in agony, grinding his teeth together to stop himself from screaming out in pain. His neck was in pain, had been ever since that damn snake had bit him.

He glared at nothing in particular and tried to ignore the pain, and then gave up on glaring at nothing, because nothing didn't care if Sasuke shot hateful glares towards it, and turned his ebony eyes over to watch Sakura. She stood calmly between Ino and Naruto, shaking and nodding her head occasionally. Her light pink locks fell down past her back and swept across it as she moved her head in answers.

Sasuke was in awe, though he would rather kill himself than admit it. She was powerful. Sasuke was smart. He knew that if there were burn marks on the earth just from the chakra admitting from her body, she had some serious power.

If he wanted to defeat his brother, he'd definitely have to defeat Sakura. Which was a scary thought. Sakura's a girl. And even against his logical side, a very pretty girl at that, especially when she was fighting. He saw the way her eyes lit up when she was going to punch the asshole from the Hyuuga clan, the way she held her beautiful voice when she told them she was going to get stronger, it was addicting to look at.

He absolutely loved it, and couldn't figure out why. He wanted her to get mad at him. He wanted her to fight him. He wanted to fight her. Badly.

And he had seen how the Hyuuga boy had been watching her. It made him really pissed off, but he had absolutely no clue why. He shot a hateful glare towards the white eyed boy anyway, hoping that would ease the urge to kill him. Unfortunately, it did not. Sasuke was already forming short lists of who he needed to fight to get stronger, and who he desperately wanted to fight. And a list for both reasons. Neji was on that one. Right under Sakura.

Lee had seen her, he'd seen it all. He had seen how terrified she had been, how much into despair she fell when she realized who she was up against. He saw how she had fought back tears. He saw how she had relaxed. He saw her power emerge to the first time.

And it was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Her heart. He had seen her heart. It had all of a sudden jumped alive, and it was alit with bright green chakra. He had watched that said chakra flow though the rest of her. But when he saw her heart, first alit, it was amazing.

And that's when he automatically knew Sakura had become strong. And not only that, he knew that the power was hers. He had become strong through determination. Seven hundred laps around Konoha. Training with Gai. He had become strong through hard work.

But what Sakura had done…she had looked deep inside herself, she had ventured to her deepest thoughts and let them go. He knew because he saw them go. He saw them flow with her chakra.

And this, he realized, is why she had earned it. Even Lee himself was too afraid to let his deepest emotions go…no matter how much he wanted to, and this girl had let them go. It was simply a wonder to him. He just had to fight her.

"Does it hurt?" Sakura shook her head. "Did you punch a guy though a tree then?!" Sakura nodded. "How the hell did you do that?" She shrugged.

Naruto and Ino could be really annoying at times. Really, really annoying. Their questions irritated the hell out of her. Especially when they asked how she managed to do it. To that question, or any form they had come up with of it she would just shrug, hoping they'd drop it.

She didn't really know how she did it. Well, in a way she did. One thing she knew, was this chakra power came from her heart. She had felt it arise there, and there was two other key factors.

Number one. Her chakra seemed to be fueled by her emotions. She could practically feel the chakra pools change as her mood did. The chakra inside her now was so strong she could feel it in every inch of her body, swirling in various pools.

She could feel changes though too. When she was sad, her chakra would immediately slow and become sluggish. It would drag through her body creating a terrible feeling throughout her. Like she was sinking. For some reason this feeling reminded her of Sasuke.

When she was happy, her chakra sped up. It whooshed around in the pools faster and bounced through her system. It made her feel alive and happy, and she just wanted to run around in circles. It was an elated feeling. This one reminded her of Naruto.

Then, her favorite so far, was when she was angry. When she was angry her chakra would keep a slow, steady rhythm, but it would pound through her. It swirled powerfully though her body with determination. This one, this one reminded her of herelf. She absolutely loved it. Itmade her feel strong. Brave. Determined.

Number two. Her feelings had left her. It's not like she had realized at the time, but letting all of her emotions out…had literally meant that. Sakura no longer felt a need to rival and be angry at Ino. Naruto bothered her much less. She held less respect for Neji, and greater respect for Lee. She no longer had an infatuation with Sasuke.

And that was just it. She didn't care. She didn't feel the loss of losing these emotions, but these were those of which she had hidden within herself.

Now she had new emotions. These were not biased. They were not judgmental. In fact, she loved them. And this is when she realized, that the code didn't apply to her. The ninja code. It said that a ninja must not hold emotions or let them stand in the way.

Emotions were Sakura's prime source for chakra now.

Damn, all that time spent memorizing the book, wasted.

Sakura sighed as she was pulled back to reality by Ino and Naruto. Ino was waving a hand in front of her face and Naruto was screaming random things like "Wake up Sakura-chan!". Shikamaru was complaining about the noise, while Chouji was complaining about the lack of food. Sasuke was watching their antics with a light smirk on his face. Team Gai had taken off back though the woods.

Sakura brought herself back and pushed Ino gently away. "I'm awake, okay? Just…thinking."

Ino placed a hand on her hip. "About what?"

"The ninja code."

"What about it?"

"I think I'll have to burn my copy when I get back."


End file.
